Christmas With The Duke. Katrina Cudmore

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ them yet. I’ll do so in the New Year.’ He paused and frowned. Cleared his throat. ‘A hotel consortium has signalled its interest in acquiring Loughmore.’

      ‘Loughmore turned into a hotel! They’ll change the castle beyond recognition. I’ve seen similar developments all over Ireland. They’ll add on modern conference centres...build new homes and golf courses on the grounds. They’ll wreck the place. Would you be happy to see Loughmore changed so utterly?’

      ‘Things can’t stay the same for ever—I’m sure whoever buys it will be sympathetic to its history.’

      ‘I wouldn’t be so certain. And have you thought about the staff? Loughmore and working for your family means everything to them.’

      Tom gave an exasperated flick of his hand. ‘That’s why I’m here—I want to give them as much notice as I can. And I’ll do my best to ensure they are all employed by the new owners’

      ‘Working in Loughmore isn’t just a job for the staff, though, it’s a way of life. Many of them come from families that have worked on the estate for generations. They love Loughmore—they’re immensely proud to work for your family.’

      He considered her unhappily for long seconds and then gave a terse shake of his head. ‘I’m holding a meeting with the senior staff tomorrow morning and I will brief all the other staff after that. The hotel group is keen for the sale to go ahead as soon as possible.’

      ‘Can’t it wait until after Christmas?’

      ‘No. It’s better the staff have as much notice as possible.’ Moving towards the door he said, ‘I have some work to do. I need to get my laptop from the car.’

      ‘Stephen will have had it carried in already.’ Pushing in front of him she added, ‘Let me go and find out where he’s put it—I suspect the library.’

      She reached for the doorknob and pulled the door open an inch. But suddenly Tom was behind her, closing it with a push of his open palm.

      For long seconds she stood with her back to him. He was wearing an aftershave she didn’t recognise. But she did recognise the chain of reactions he caused whenever he came close—the thrill in her stomach, the inability to breathe, the heat that whipped through every cell in her body.

      ‘Why are you acting like this?’

      She jerked at his soft voice. Willed herself not to lean back into him.

      Slowly she turned around. She breathed deeply against the impulse to reach out and run her thumb against his evening shadow...and then along the hard lines of his lips.

      ‘Acting like what?’

      His head tilted. ‘As if you have to run after me...do every small task that I can do for myself.’

      She hesitated, but then the question spilled out of her. ‘Selling Loughmore...has it anything to do with what happened between us?’

      He stepped back a bare inch, but it was enough to allow her to breathe.

      His mouth tensed. ‘Why would it?’

      Twelve years ago, after the initial shock of discovering she was pregnant had worn off, she had naively hoped she and Tom would somehow cope. She had known it wouldn’t be easy—they were both only eighteen, after all, with their own dreams and ambitions to follow. But her biggest mistake in her desperation to believe everything would be okay had been foolishly ignoring the fact that they were from different worlds, with families who didn’t approve of what they believed was nothing more than a friendship.

       Know your place, Ciara. Don’t be getting any notions.

      That had been her gran’s constant refrain. It had used to drive her crazy—but no more so than the way she’d been treated by Tom’s family, who didn’t even seem to realise she existed as she went about her cleaning duties throughout the castle. She was a staff member, and she had been warned time and time again never to speak to a member of the family unless spoken to, and to leave a room if any of them entered.

      When Tom had invited her to some social events in the castle, his parents’ disapproval had been obvious. As had his sisters’ awkward embarrassment at having a member of staff in their midst. Their friendship had caused raised eyebrows not only in their families but also in the wider community.

      One evening, at a recital that had been held in the castle, she had overheard two of the Duchess’s friends talking.

      “What does she think she’s up to? Have you heard that accent of hers? As if a Benson would have anything to do with a working-class girl from Dublin.”

      No one but her mother had ever found out that they’d become more than friends. They had agreed to keep their relationship a secret. At first Ciara had been happy with that, but in their final weeks together, as they’d grown ever closer, the secrecy and lying had felt all wrong. It had felt as though she was living two separate lives—as though they were doing something shameful and what they had was nothing but a lie.

      That day she had told him about the pregnancy she had flown home to Dublin early, unable to face any further humiliation. The sharp drawn-out pain in her stomach had started over the Irish Sea.

      The moment she’d walked in the door of her mum’s terraced house in Coolock her mum had instantly known something was wrong. She had taken her to the Rotunda Hospital, holding her hand for the entire taxi journey.

      The fact that her mum had held her hand had freaked Ciara out—her mum wasn’t given to demonstrative acts, and Ciara had known then that her baby was in serious trouble.

      Later, after a young male doctor with sad eyes had gently told her she had miscarried, she had told her mum who the father was. Her mum had paled, called her a ‘big eejit’ and then turned away to stare out of the hospital window, before returning to her side and admitting her own relationship with Tom’s father when she was Ciara’s age.

      Her mum had stumbled over her words, and the difficulty of confiding her secrets had been obvious in the anger in her eyes, the tension in her mouth. She’d only found out that Tom’s father was marrying Lady Selena Phillips when it had been announced in the newspapers. She had called him at Bainsworth Hall. He’d eventually returned her call, incredulous that she hadn’t realised they could never possibly have a future together, and telling her it was his duty to marry well.

      Less than a year later Ciara’s mum had married herself, after a rebound romance with a man who had subsequently walked out on them when Ciara was only a year old. Ciara’s grandparents had disapproved of the marriage, and until she was a teenager there had been no contact between her mum and her grandparents.

      Her childhood had been lonely. Her mum had worked long hours and Ciara had spent most evenings on her own. When her mum had come home, she’d always been too tired to talk, or to play with Ciara.

      Her mum’s confession that night in the hospital had been the first and only time her mum had opened up to her—allowed Ciara even a glimpse into her emotions. The default position in the Harris household was to be glib and pretend all was okay, to bury emotion beneath laughter and avoidance.

      Now Ciara regarded Tom and wondered how he felt about everything that had happened all those years ago. A trace of humiliation still burnt brightly in her stomach, СКАЧАТЬ